


Ceromancy

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Wax
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:13:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only reason he was doing this at all was because he knew that the few divinations he had done seriously had been accurate and Snape knew that as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ceromancy

Divination had never been one of his favorite topics, but Remus found himself in the unenviable position of being one of the only one of the Order who had 'dabbled' in the most wooly of Magical Arts. At the time, it had been an almost compelling need to peer into the future with the same question asked a thousand different ways. "Will there be a cure?" was the theme and there was only a certain amount of negativity he could deal with before he gave up trying.

However, the only reason he was doing this at all was because he knew that the few divinations he had done seriously had been accurate and Snape knew that as well.

"You want me to divine whether you have been discovered?" Remus asked, double-checking again before he committed himself.

"Yes. Preferably before I go to tomorrow night's meeting." He always had that sort of slimy, bored drawl when he addressed everyone but Albus. It left Remus imagining that the Death Eaters made for fantastic social companionship.

"It's not like I have the specialist equipment with me," Remus said reasonably. "Although theoretically you can divine from virtually anything. I suppose you didn't bring a Tarot pack or casting runes with you?"

"Why ever would I carry that rubbish? The only time I've ever used casting runes was to dissolve them in a portance potion." He wasn't, quite, leaning against a desk while he watched Remus.

"Well if we are in a hurry then perhaps we should see what we have available," Remus replied. The problem was he knew Snape didn't so much hate him as fear him. Sirius, oh God, Sirius and James he had loathed with a palpable passion, but him, Severus feared. For him to come to him now, he must be desperate, and he had to admit, this was probably more important than feelings.

Even if the man was standing there, cold and unreachable as a statue of the bastard would've been, he was pushing past a well known fear just to be asking. "You're the expert, and as such, I leave the nature of it to your preference."

Remus looked around. Order safehouses left a lot to be desired in the way of creature comforts, but there were some staples. Quills, food, medicine, candles, bed, emergency floo powder...

Out of that, the easiest one was Candle divination. Ceromancy. "Well I'm sure you won't like this one bit, but you might want to secure the wards because you are going to have to get naked."

"I see." He as giving Remus a dirty, dubious look, and it was hard not to throw his arms up in exasperation. Or throw a candle at his head. "Pray tell why do I need to disrobe?" He was turning, casting more secure wards while Remus tried to track what he was doing. The man was throwing dark magic around like confetti, easy as nothing.

Remus tried to think of a way of explaining politely and was too tired to be diplomatic. He had spent the last few weeks sniffing around Greyback and he simply didn't have his normal patience. "Because you are a closed-minded bastard in the most literal occulumens way and to read you, we need a parchment of skin."

He watched Snape throw out one more ward, and then he started at the collar of his robes. "Fine. That was all I needed to know."

Remus looked at the fire and with a flick of his wand stirred it up to increase the warmth of the room. He could do a warming charm but no doubt it would fade when he was concentrating. He then transfigured one of the meager blankets into something soft and fur like so Snape could lie down. "Here. I hope there is a fresh candle here."

He expected some kind of rejoinder, while he started to check drawers for what he'd need, but it didn't come, and Remus was glad of the quiet. If anyone asked how he'd come to doing a divination on Snape's chest, he'd just have to shrug. More likely, no one would ever know.

"I will infuse the wax with magic and then you must ask the question just before I let it drip," he said calmly. "Hopefully it will sting only a little."

Snape had finally unbuttoned the seemingly endless buttons on his robes, and shrugged them off. He was making quick work of the undershirt, which Remus considered an artifact, or artifice, as a death-eater half-blood. "I don't fear pain."

"No, I suppose not," Remus answered as he turned away to find a virgin candle. He washed his hands, a concession to cleansing that the ritual required and found a suitable white tallow taper.

When he turned back, Snape was seated on the fur, shirtless at last, and leaning back on his hands, waiting for Remus. His pallor hadn't gotten any better since school, though Remus supposed he was older and stronger and covered in a bloody lot more scars than he'd been then. That could've applied to the both of them.

They were both marked, one way or another. "It is fortunately a very simple ritual," he said using a quill to scratch in a combination of Ancient runes into the soft tallow. "But it is best to keep questions as simple as you can. You can ask what you wish once we begin, as long as you can stand the wax upon you. Would you believe Muggles try this by dropping it into water?"

"All they're divining is the fate of the water's source. Useful, I suppose, if one is very concerned about water." He was watching, at least, some mild interest now that Remus as at work on it.

"A sanitized version of when they used to drop it into bowls of blood," Remus said as he finished the runes. "There, that should do it."

No doubt Severus was surprised he knew about such Dark magic, but he had more than a passing acquaintance. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." As he would ever be, and he was ready, waiting for Remus to crouch own closer, no doubt, and light the candle before he asked his question.

"Remember, the longer you can stand the wax dripping on you, the more powerful the divination will be, the more details and accuracy," Remus replied looking seriously at Snape. He chose to kneel then and with a flick of his wand, lit the candle, to channel magic within it and hold the flow of his own magic pouring into the candle. He muttered the spell's incantations under his breath, which he always suspected was just a ploy to make sure the wax had started melting properly and then held it over Snape’s chest.

White on white skin the first drop fell, splashing on the skin before becoming more opaque. It did not completely set, but instead flowed into the drop that joined it.

He watched Snape flinch, watching the wax fall on his chest, waiting for a few more splashes before he asked anything. "Are my loyalties still trusted by the Dark Lord?"

The wax swirled on skin, still hot and fluid and Remus could only imagine what it must feel like as it shaped and sought the truth from bare skin to bare soul. It flowed first into the shape of spider what walked its hot wax body down the curve of the potion master’s abdomen. "The spider -- spinning a trap with suspicion." Not a complete answer and the wax dripped again swelling the hot wax pool each time it dropped.

The man inhaled. "Does whatever is left of Tom Riddle still believe I serve him?" That was a strange question, a strange wording, but important to the man, as far as Remus could tell.

The spider flowed hot wax into a long thin snake that turned and crawled back up to Snape’s chest. It slithered around his nipple flicking a tongue of stinging wax to lap at them before coiling over jealously over his heart, a trail of livid scalded skin behind it. "The snake believes a heart is his, a service won through sensual gifts and secret moments."

Remus felt his own face grow hot. He started to consider what that might actually mean and had to struggle to retain the divinatory magic flow.

"Does whatever is left of Tom Riddle believe I would betray him?" Not could, no, because Remus was willing to believe that Snape could strangle his own mother one handed while reading a newspaper, but he also found it dubious and somewhat unlikely, even with the capacity. He shifted his footing, and more wax dropped, adding to the fluid heat that was the snake.

The wax had to burn; he could see the red trails on the pale white skin as the snake coiled and moved again. It raised up, the wax flaring into a hooded cobra in attack posture, even as the next stream of wax, surely painful, flowed into the shape of a dragon that seemed to try and usurp that place over Snape's heart. "The snake believes his rightful place over your heart is shared or usurped by the dragon. A stolen heart could lead to betrayal."

"Oh, bloody hell." Snape closed his eyes tightly, and then exhaled raggedly. Remus was expecting him to ask him to stop, but he didn't. "Now if only I knew what the dragon was supposed to symbolize."

To Remus's surprise, the wax flowed suddenly down to Severus's navel and a second smaller dragon bubbled up out of the magically fluid hot wax. "The dragon has young." Remus watched as it rather alarmingly disappeared downwards out of his immediate sight. "You have protected the young dragon."

It had to be Malfoy.

Snape jerked a little, and Circe knew where that wax had gone. His thoughts about it twining and slithering in burning heat around Snape’s cock brought a flush to his cheeks.

"Do any of the Death Eaters have firm suspicions about my loyalty?"

The wax swirled and Remus could see the blisters forming on the reddened skin. This time a crow shape appeared, flying in circles over pale skin, a white crow against a scarlet burned sky. "The crow bears only rumors that lead nowhere, gossip and ill-tidings that presage the storm," he murmured. "There is nothing but words, empty and harsh."

Rumors were weak enough that he knew Severus would go back to them the next night. "Well, that's the best I can hope for. I suppose I could ask who kills me first -- the Order or the Death Eaters."

Remus eyes widened as the candle blazed suddenly, pouring wax all over his own hand as the snake returned, enormous in size now and then writhed around before the spell lost cohesion and it died there on Snape’s body, cooling into a hardened wax rictus.

"Enough." Remus felt shaken. "Enough, Severus, Asking about your own death is never a wise thing."

He exhaled hard, and shifted a hand to rest on top of the snake, his Dark Mark showing clearly. "Why shouldn't it be?"

"Because it is a complex thing, part of the most Ancient magics. You know that as well as I do." He stared at the snake with its fangs bared, ready to strike. "This could be literal, figurative, it could mean the Dark Lord or it could be a representative of someone else."

“It could be the Snake that is our Lord, it could be Nagini, it could be representative of a betraying snake in the grass, yes, yes, I understand." Snape closed his eyes. "I never said I was interested in thwarting it."

"Severus." Remus reached out a hand and hesitated. He understood, or at least he felt he did. He knew what it was to have a life out of control. "Your life could be your own again."

The skin had blistered and burned. A healing charm would be needed.

He exhaled again, and then set the cooled wax snake to the side. It left a reddened spot beneath it that would probably blister in short order. "Oh, hurray."

"Let me..." he offered, faintly amused by Snape’s tone and managed a decent enough healing Charm that he played carefully over the potion Masters skin. "Blistering can be unpleasantly painful."

"So can Cruciatus." He started to sit up, stretching a little before he reached down and slipped the fingers of his right hand beneath the waistband of his pants. "I failed to expect the wax to be quite so... imbued of personality."

"A product of my magic and your subconscious," Remus replied, unable to stop himself from looking to see where the smaller wax dragon had ended curled.

He wasn't sure if he'd been expecting to watch Snape slide his hand that far down his pants, surely somewhere past or around his dick before he came back up with a handful of wax. "Malfoys are... exceedingly clingy."

"Mmhmm," Remus replied raising his eyebrows a little. "Possessive as well. It would appear, Severus, that you are to be the subject of possible contention between the Malfoys and the Dark Lord."

"Lovely." There was a funny sneer in there, as he dropped that piece of wax beside the snake, dusting off his fingertips. Remus let his eyes wander, and realized that the man was half-hard.

Obviously he had enjoyed the attentions of the wax dragon there. Remus tried to stop from staring but his eyes kept wandering back. "Are you blistered... there?" he asked, trying to sound more neutral than he felt.

"I'll take care of it later," Snape drawled, sitting up a little more straightly, "as I imagine I've darkened your doorstep quite long enough for one eve."

"There is no need to hurry away." Lupin felt a little hesitant. Perhaps it was the forced intimacy of the reading but he did not want him to leave.

After all, he'd just peeled back as many dirty secrets the man was holding as he'd asked questions. The least he could do was share a cup of tea. "Oh?"

"I, for one, need a cup of tea," he said. "Speaking oracularly is ridiculous and draining and I suspect being the parchment is equally debilitating."

"It is... tiring." Snape shifted, reaching for his shirt to shrug it on. He still wasn't completely healed of the burns, but it just looked like a mean sunburn, which was much better than the bubbling mess.

That was why he wasn't a medi-mage or healer, he supposed. It took a delicate touch to heal that perfectly. But he could make a good cup of tea and try really hard not to think about where a wax dragon might twine itself down in Severus's pants.


End file.
